


Tinderbox

by PegLegPI



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:27:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28409253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PegLegPI/pseuds/PegLegPI
Summary: They’d had five lovely months of being best friends and then she’d gone and ruined it all.(Picks up at the end of Troubled Blood.)
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike, Robin Ellacott/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 48
Kudos: 101





	1. Robin

The warm feeling of a deep friendship had carried them from May to October. They’d labeled their relationship, such as it was, as best mates as they’d sat in the dark office eating curry and drinking neat whiskey, two black eyes blooming on her face. She had thought, at the time, that she’d sensed a frisson of something else in the undercurrent of the room and all at once she’d become aware of the bed above their heads, and the realization that she wanted him to lead her there came suddenly into focus. She’d known that all along, really, in the back of her mind. She had just never let herself acknowledge it. She shoved the thought into a dark corner and purposefully didn’t look in its direction, blaming it on the whiskey and loneliness and situational abstinence.

They’d had five lovely months of being best friends and then she’d gone and ruined it all. The memory of her birthday still burned her from both sides. Realistically she knew it hadn’t been a date, even then, but she couldn’t stop her wayward mind from framing it as such. She’d never been on a date quite like that before and she’d allowed herself to be carried away by the romance of it, the champagne, and the new scent lingering on her skin. She had just been having such a lovely time as they walked from the tube station toward her flat. The conversation had been perfect, the bubbles in the champagne had made her bold and unable to fully ignore the realization that had come into sharp focus that night in May. As they reached her flat, she’d turned toward him, and her body had seemed to act of its own volition.

Before her mind had even had time to register her body’s intentions, she’d rocked upward on the balls of her feet and pressed her lips lightly against his. The response had been…mixed, to say the least. His hands slid into her open coat, curling around her hips in a tight grip. His lips pressed back against hers, his head angled to the side. In the next moment, he was pulling away from her with a pained look on his face, his hands fell from her hips and out of her coat. He was telling her he hadn’t meant to give her the wrong impression, stumbling over his words and prattling on about 'all or nothing'—whatever that was supposed to mean.

Humiliation pounded in her ears, drowning out words that weren’t making any sense to her anyway. When she spoke, her voice was thick with embarrassment and tight with unexpressed emotion. “I-I’m sorry,” she stammered, “the champagne has gone straight to my head. I-I know.” She fixed her eyes somewhere around his left shoulder and felt her back bump against the door. “Thank you for a lovely evening, Cormoran.”

She felt blessed to find her keys already in hand as she turned her back to him and blindly shoved them inside the lock. She left him, still talking about all or nothing and something about Tolstoy, on her doorstep as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

It was now mid-December and things had been strained between them ever since. Strike had tried to broach the subject of the kiss precisely two times in November, but she’d cut across him both times. First firmly changing the subject, and then roughly telling him that she would prefer not to talk about her mistake the second time he attempted to bring it up. She appreciated that he wanted to speak about it, to clear the air, but she didn’t think she could stand to hear him say again how he hadn’t meant to give her the wrong impression, or to hear him say that she’d read the evening all wrong. She couldn’t relive that embarrassment in front of him again, though she had relived it many times in private. For her part, she just wanted to pretend that it never happened and to go about their business as they always had, but instead their relationship reverted to that weird place they were in just after her wedding, after that bloody hug on the stairs at her reception.

In normal circumstances, she’d phone Ilsa with the details of her disastrous date. Though given Ilsa’s penchant for matchmaking and meddling where Robin and Strike were concerned, and the fact that it hadn’t been a date at all, she decided it might be best to leave Ilsa out of this one. Not that there had been any disastrous dates before the nondate she’d gone on with Strike, of course. Or after, for that matter. She had instead carried it around with her for several weeks before ultimately deciding to phone Vanessa, who suggested they meet for drinks at her local.

That was how Robin found herself seated across from Vanessa at a pub near the Met, pouring her heart out over a glass of white wine. She took a rather long sip of her wine before speaking again. Clearing her throat, shifting in her seat, and glancing at Vanessa she said, “Well? Get on with it.”

Vanessa took a deep breath, digesting the events of her friend’s thirtieth birthday celebration. She took a lengthy pull of her beer, then said, “Well, luv, I wish that I could say I’m surprised or shocked or something, but honestly I think that anyone on the periphery could see _something_ like this on the horizon for years.”

Robin registered that her face must be showing some level of surprise, because Vanessa reached a dark hand across the table and gently squeezed Robin’s. “Look, I think it’s been obvious that the two of you have been circling around each other for years. Wardle and I thought that it would finally happen after you divorced, but then it didn’t. I think that you’re going to have to talk it through.”

Vanessa watched Robin’s head loll backward and to the side as she groaned, “I don’t _want_ to talk it through, Van!”

“I know, I know!” Vanessa held her hands up defensively, as if she could push back Robin’s protests. “But listen, luv, if you don’t hash this out with him it’s going to hang over your partnership like a rain cloud. It’ll burst if you don’t help it dissipate. It’ll ruin your partnership. If he doesn’t want to be with you, and he’s a daft prick if he doesn’t, you must deal with it and move along. And I think you should use a dating app I’ve just heard about. You just download it to your mobile and you can find people you match with in the area, or so I’ve been told.”

Despite herself, Robin laughed. “God, I can’t imagine scrounging for dates on an app. That might be even more awful than the date that wasn’t a date and the kiss that shouldn’t have happened.”

“Well, yes, but when are you going to have time to find a date in any of the ‘normal’ ways?” Vanessa asked, curving her fingers around the word normal. “Your hours are mad, like mine. For people in our line of work, it’s either strike up something with someone you work with—sorry, I didn’t mean to say Strike, or get extremely lucky while you’re trolling the pubs. On your end, it’s either a coworker or a client, and you _don’t_ want to date a client. Can you imagine it?”

Robin made a noise in the back of her throat as she thought about men like Two-Times or Bad Dad. “Absolutely not.”

“Well, there you have it. It’s highly unlikely you’ll meet someone in the _normal_ way unless you’re constantly on the look out for Mr. Right in Tesco, or some other unlikely place like that.” She looked positively proud of the case she’d built. “Look, mostly I’ve heard from my single colleagues that people are using this new app for, well, sex. Hooking up, as the youth of today call it.”

Robin could feel her eyes grow impossibly wide and her cheeks burning. She pressed a hand to her chest, “Van!” She chided, “Are you suggesting I use some dating app for…sex?” She finished on a whisper.

Vanessa threw her head back, laughing heartily at Robin’s prudishness. Of course, she wasn’t aware of Robin’s history. There were only three people in the whole of London who knew about the rape. Strike had found out during a drunken evening years ago, after she’d discovered that Matthew had been sleeping with Sarah Shadlock when she’d been broken at home in Masham, hiding from the world and trying her best to heal. Sarah Shadlock, Robin reasoned, undoubtedly knew as well. She’d been sleeping with Matthew, after all. He had surely confided in her about it. Matthew, of course, was the third person to know of it.

“Robin, listen, it’s 2014. You don’t have to put the horse before the cart anymore. You can hook up; you can have meaningless sex!” Vanessa whispered across the table. “I know it’s been some time for you. Opportunity is slim on the ground, you’re not meeting many men that are even options, you’ve been throwing yourself into work since before you even divorced and Matthew couldn’t have been meeting your needs. I’m just suggesting you try it, that’s all.”

“I have a…complicated relationship with sex,” Robin admitted uneasily. “It’s not easy for me to just have meaningless sex, Van. I wish it were.”

The slump of Robin’s shoulders made Vanessa reach across the table again. “I’m sorry, luv. Maybe don’t use it for sex then, but at the very least you can use it for meeting new people, going on dates. You never know, you might find Mr. Right in the place you least expect him to be in. Online! And if not, hey, at least you can have fun in the meantime, but it’ll definitely help you move on from Strike, I think. Maybe you’re putting more stock in your feelings because you’re lonely and because you’re, ya know, frustrated?”

Robin offered her friend a small, acquiesced smile. “Maybe you’re right,” she placed her hand over Vanessa’s and gave it a gentle pat, “I’ll think about it, alright?”

*****

In the days following her evening with Vanessa, she genuinely did consider all the advice that her friend had given her. Things remained stilted at the office, they were spending less and less time together at work, seemingly never in their shared office at the same time except on rare occasions. Staring at his empty chair, she didn’t _think_ that she was transferring her feelings of loneliness onto her partner. She could be honest enough with herself to admit the feelings she had for Cormoran Strike had begun growing and slowly simmering under the surface since the start. The kiss that shouldn’t have been was a perfect example of why it had always been a bad idea. First, he clearly wasn't interested. She wasn't as beautiful as Charlotte or Elin, or Lorelei. Even if she could look back on certain memories and events and see something more hiding under the surface, she was now positive that the undercurrents had bee coming from her all along. She simply could not trust her instincts or her intuition when it came to Cormoran Strike, because both had led her so far astray by a false sense of intimacy that the purchase of a new perfume and a meticulously planned non-date with flavors of romance had created. Second, the kiss that had halted them in their tracks was a perfect example of why it had always been a bad idea for her to open the door behind which she kept her feelings for Cormoran hidden. They were barely speaking, spending less time than ever together, and all their interactions were tinged in awkwardness now. 

Perhaps Vanessa had been right? She slid her gaze from his empty chair to the mobile lying on her side of the shared desk. She turned the advice Vanessa had given her around once more in her mind, coming to the conclusion that her friend had been right. She needed to move on, either professionally or personally; and romantically. She certainly wasn't ready to sever their partnership over the kiss and didn't want to lose him as a friend over her unrequited feelings. What she wanted, more than anything, was her best mate back. She wasn't positive that this was the way to get him back, but it was certainly worth a shot wasn't it? If she moved on, started dating, wouldn't he feel less awkward about her obvious feelings for him? 

Picking up her phone, she tapped out a message to Vanessa.

**What was that app you told me about, again?**

She bit her thumbnail, staring at her screen as she waited for Vanessa to text back. She felt as if she had to get the name of it and download it right then or she would lose her nerve altogether. She jumped a bit in her seat as her screen lit up and her phone pinged. Vanessa had simply texted:

 **Tinder.** **😊**


	2. Strike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He couldn't remember ever having a better time with a woman than he did with Robin that evening. He wanted to wring every last drop out of the night and the thought made him feel warm. Then she'd crossed all the careful lines he'd drawn between them. Without warning, she'd turned toward him and surged upward on her feet, pressing her impossibly soft lips against his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted this earlier today, but as I was making dinner I suddenly realized that although I'd meant to have small inconsistencies in how they remembered certain things, I had written a HUGE plot inconsistency that definitely had not been intentional. So I took it down and rewrote the ending of this chapter. My apologies! 
> 
> (When I deleted the chapter, I also deleted the comments about betas associated with it. I do remember Greenie from discord, but I don't recall anything else that might have been said. If you could drop me a line about betas again, I would appreciate it!)

It happened in slow motion. One moment he was walking beside her, hands deep in his pockets, a contented smile lingering on his face, thinking about how they’d just had possibly the loveliest evening of his life. The chill of the October air felt a bit like magic and they had sipped enough champagne to be properly tipsy, leaning toward a bit drunk. They’d popped into a pub near The Ritz and ordered food to soak up the alcohol and set off on their way to Robin’s flat after, he had insisted on walking her all the way home. He claimed his bout of chivalry on concern for her safety, but as he couldn’t remember ever having a better time with a woman than he did with Robin that evening, he admitted to himself that it was because he didn’t want to say goodbye and end the evening so soon. He wanted to wring every last drop out of the night and the thought made him feel a bit warmer.

Then she’d crossed all the careful lines he’d drawn between them. Without warning, she turned toward him and surged upward on her feet, pressing her impossibly soft lips against his. His immediate response had been to slip his hands into her open coat and curl his large hands around the soft swell of her hips, and as dopamine pulsed through his system, his eyes drifted closed. His grip on her hips was tight, he knew that, but his knees were threatening to fail him.

In his mind, and later in his memory, the kiss seemed to last forever. In truth it had been mere seconds. He was pressing his lips back against her, hard, and he found himself stepping toward her—intent on closing the gap between their bodies. It was only a soft moan from her parted lips that seemed to bring him back to himself as the sound shot straight to his groin. All at once, he realized that they were teetering on the precipice of a line they’d never be able to come back from once crossed. Perhaps this one, brief kiss had already shoved them recklessly across it? _All or nothing_. He thought to himself, forcing his fingers to release her delicious hips and his lips to separate from hers. He could see the confusion flitting across her beautiful, flushed face as he stepped back from her.

“Robin…I-” his voice cracked, and he cast his eyes downward at their feet as he cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean to give the wrong impression. I…well, I don’t want to take advantage of you. I didn’t mean for this evening to lead…to this.” He gestured between them with a large hand before dragging it down his weary face. “It’s just that this is all or nothing and I-”

She laughed then, surprising him into silence. It was a tight hollow little laugh, laced heavily with embarrassment. “I-I’m sorry,” she stammered into the night air between them, her voice floating on a mist of warm breath. “The champagne has gone straight to my head. I-I know.”

He wanted to ask her what it was that she knew, but he suddenly felt panicked to watch her back away from him until she bumped into the door behind her. He tried to tell her, as she turned toward the door and slid her key smoothly inside the lock, about Tolstoy. He tried to tell her about Dave and Penny Polworth, about the man that Dave had met in the pub and what the man had said that sent Polworth bounding out into the night in search of his future wife. He tried to tell her about Mazankov and Krupov, about the realizations he’d come to that night in May when he’d unintentionally given her two black eyes, about the bed that had been above their heads and how he’d wanted desperately to lead her up the stairs toward it that night. He tried to tell her about the feeling of it being all or nothing, about how he was not made for long-term, about how much he cared for her and that he didn’t want to risk mucking it up and losing her from his life like he had with all the women who’d come before him. Eventually, they’d all left him for one reason or another hadn’t they? But all his explanations died on his lips in the cold October air as she stepped inside her flat and shut the door without so much as a glance back in his direction.

He stood there, staring stupidly at the door, listening to her turn the locks. Surmising that she must be walking away from the door at that very moment. He paced on the sidewalk for a few moments, pulling out a cigarette and stopping only to light it in the shelter of his cupped hand. He even approached the door, his large fist prepared to wrap his hairy knuckles against it, but his hand dropped back to his side without ever completing the task. What could he say to her to make her understand? He would sound like a selfish, greedy fucker if he were to pound on her door and tell her that he wanted the possibility of being with her. He couldn’t say that when the time of possibility had just arisen. It would sound as if he wanted to have his cake and eat it too.

He turned his back on her flat, flicked his cigarette away, and shoved his hands deep into his pockets as he set off toward the tube station. He desperately wanted to turn back, pound on the door until she answered, and kiss her again. He wanted nothing more than to go back and tell her that he was most probably in love with her, but they had too much to lose and his track record was too abysmal to even try, wasn’t it? He told himself she wouldn’t understand, because he didn’t think he could sort out his feelings right then in any sort of a coherent way. He told himself that she would call him a coward. He refused to admit to himself that maybe he was, that he was too scared.

The walk from the tube station to her flat had been pleasantly warm and comfortable. The walk back felt bitterly, bitingly cold. He sat hunched in his seat, arms crossed tightly over his chest, and the lines of his face set in misery for the duration of the ride back toward Denmark Street; and when he arrived, he climbed the stairs to his attic flat in a thoughtless daze, setting his mind on the act of getting up the stairs with a dull ache in his stump.

He was not a stupid man. Even _he_ could taste the flavours of a first date. He knew what it would look like, taking her to The Ritz for champagne. He realized that buying her a new signature scent was ridiculously intimate and he understood that her concern for his consideration of the perfume scent had played an exceptionally large part of her decision-making process. He did know, somewhere in the unacknowledged parts of his mind, that seeking his approval meant that she wanted him to be close enough to smell it on her skin, to find it pleasing, maybe even alluring.

He spent the rest of the night tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep and thinking endlessly about all the things he _should’ve_ said to her. He was quickly realizing all the things he certainly would _need_ to say. He couldn’t close his eyes without seeing the burning embarrassment in her watery blue eyes or the shrinking of her shoulders as she backed into the door. It played out on a loop behind his closed eyelids and made the pub food they’d eaten and the beer and champagne he’d drunk churn in his stomach. He was uncomfortably close to vomiting. 

Somehow, Cormoran managed to drift off into a fitful sleep. His dreams were haunting, featuring himself running along dark corridors—both legs made of flesh—chasing after something; except he didn’t know exactly what he’d been chasing. He didn’t know if he’d been chasing Robin, if it had been Charlotte, or if it had even been a person at all.

Trying his best to shake it off, he took a little more care in dressing that Thursday morning, resolving himself to speak to his partner about the events of the previous night once she’d arrived and gotten settled in for the day. She didn’t have much on her agenda except covering the latest young stripper who’d had the misfortune of dating their long-time client, whom they called Two Times. She’d mentioned her plan to finish up paperwork and filing the day after her birthday and he didn’t think there would be a better time to put his cards on the table, just as she had the night before.

He was halfway down he stairs when he received her text.

**Feeling a bit under the weather this morning. I’ve texted Michelle and asked if she’s free to pick up Two Times’s girlfriend later.**

He could hear Pat behind the closed office door, banging away on her keyboard, as he stood on the landing tapping out several messages that he quickly deleted. He wasn’t sure how to play this. It felt a bit like a Charlotte game, but she wasn’t Charlotte, was she? If she had been, he would have ignored her just to make her angry, but this was Robin, and she wasn’t typically a woman who played games. At least, not in his experience with her.

**You’re due time off anyway. Feel better.**

He half expected a response from her, of some kind, but wasn’t entirely surprised when he didn’t receive one. Instead, he slipped his phone back into his pocket and entered the office, greeting Pat rather distractedly as he faced the prospect of a day spent stewing in his thoughts.

***

He spent the whole of Thursday in his office, smoking and getting little accomplished in his foul mood. His bad temper had not escaped Pat’s attention and she regarded him with suspicion nearly every time he walked into the outer office for tea or to take a piss in the small washroom on the landing.

“No Robin today?” Pat finally asked, midway through the afternoon. Her thick fingers were flying over the keys on the keyboard in front of her, hitting them with more force than strictly necessary. Her perpetual aggressive typing had become, he realized, as normal a sound as the construction outside.

He was aware that his bad temper had not escaped their new office manager, and that she had been regarding him with a quiet suspicion all day. “No, feeling a bit under the weather.”

“Hmm. Hungover, I expect?” She asked, an eyebrow raised as she cast a glance in his direction.

“Mm,” He held the doorknob loose in his hand, realizing he must’ve made a face as Pat’s assault on the keyboard suddenly halted. He watched as she reached up to grab the vape pen dangling from her lips.

“So, how was the big date?” She rasped, swiveling her chair so that she was facing him directly.

He blinked hard exactly one time, before turning his head slightly in her direction. He wasn’t quite looking at her but wasn’t quite looking away either. This was probably the type of thing that she should be asking Robin, rather than him, wasn’t it? Especially not when she was referring to him and his partner. He sort of viewed her question as office gossip and entirely inappropriate in their workplace, in his agency. He was on the edge of reprimanding her, but when he opened his mouth, he was surprised to hear himself say, “Date?”

“Well,” she said on a burst of smoker’s cough, “your first traditional one at any rate.” She lifted her shoulder and waved her hand vaguely as she said, “You two have had loads of unconventional ones that most normal people wouldn’t consider dates.”

He stood there thinking, his hand still gripping the doorknob to the inner office. He thought about all their time spent driving here and there, all the Friday night after work drinks at the pub, all the curry nights at Nick and Ilsa’s, all the rooms in travel lodges. _Were those dates?_ He didn’t think so. It wasn’t as if they’d ever taken a road trip just for fun. Every time they’d gone on a trip together, it had been for work, hadn’t it?

Ignoring the path of that particular thought, he found himself turning toward the farting couch and lowering himself down to sit. He cast his eyes about the room as he dragged a hand down his face. “Well,” he sighed, “it wasn’t a date.”

He couldn’t quite believe that he was sitting there, spilling his life to his office manager. They didn’t even like each other much, in the beginning anyway, and it wasn’t as if they’d become friends after the begrudgingly polite working relationship they’d built in the months since she left him soup outside his door. He was quite shocked to realize he was confiding in his employee, but he supposed that he needed to unburden himself to _someone._ Ilsa wasn’t a proper choice, considering all her meddling and her matchmaking attempts. Nick would be his preferred person, but Nick wasn’t there at the moment. He reasoned that Pat would have to do.

She listened quietly until he reached the conclusion of his story, making no facial expressions, and which of course involved him spilling his guts to his employee in a wholly unprofessional and completely unlike himself way. When he finished, the silence in the room seemed to stretch uncomfortably.

Finally, she made a nasally sort of noise like a snort, uncrossed her arms and said, “You daft twat.” 

***

His mood had not improved by Friday, nor had Robin returned to work. She’d texted that she was still ill and would be staying home, Michelle would again be any bits of her caseload that she couldn’t physically work, and she would do the rest from home. He spent the entirety of his weekend wondering if she was going to even come back. He felt moderately upset with her for making excuses rather than facing it head on, and if he realized that his feelings were both hypocritical and unfair, he didn’t acknowledge it.

By the time that Monday morning made it’s rainy and bleak debut, Cormoran half expected to receive another text from Robin. This time telling him that she wouldn’t be in the office that day or any other because she was leaving hi—the agency. The thought made his chest tighten as he walked into the office that morning. He nodded his head in Pat’s direction, flicking his eyes from her desk to his office door, as if to ask if he might find Robin in there. A feeling of pure relief washed through him as Pat nodded her head, just slightly. The tight feeling in his chest had dissipated, but a rolling of his stomach had quickly replaced it as he reached for the doorknob.

He closed his eyes briefly, took a steadying breath, and opened the door. Seeing her there, seated at her side of their shared desk, was a balm for his soul. He’d been in such a foul mood over the past three days that he smiled widely at the sight of her, even despite the awkwardness that now existed between them. She looked lovely.

“Morning,” she said brightly. There was no trace of embarrassment in her voice and her morning salutation hadn’t been overly cheery. It didn’t feel empty or fake. It didn’t feel like a trap in which he could step into. It sounded rather like it always had. “I came in early to work on the rota.”

He watched her slide her blue eyes back to the laptop on her desk and felt a confusing mix of feelings as he moved to sit down in his chair and said, “Good morning.”

Silence stretched between them, until finally Robin said, “Did you have a good weekend?”

On the surface everything appeared as if it were normal, but it was under the surface that was concerning him. He couldn’t help noticing that her eyes couldn’t meet his. They rested on his forehead or near one ear; and that was if she was looking at him at all. “Robin, I think w—”

“My weekend was alright,” her cheeks burned pink as she pushed across his voice. “Aside from being ill, obviously.”

He stared at her for a few tension-filled moments, noting how her fingers were trembling as they hovered over the keyboard of her laptop. It was obvious that she was being eaten alive by embarrassment, so he decided not to press the issue just then. He decided that he would wait it out a couple of days before attempting to bring it up again.

So, rather than talking about their feelings for one another, Cormoran swiftly changed the subject. “What’s the rota looking like?”


	3. Robin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She had been on Tinder for all of two and a half days when she got her first—well, her second if you counted Morris—unsolicited dick pic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to the lovely LulaIsAKitten for her beta work!

She had been on Tinder for all of two and a half days when she got her first—well, her _second_ if you counted Morris—unsolicited dick pic. The surprise of it caused her to gasp and drop her mobile. She could feel her cheeks blazing with embarrassment as Cormoran raised an eyebrow. She suddenly realized, as she bent at the waist to scoop up her fallen device, that perhaps she shouldn’t Tinder at work.

“Everything alright?” The concern laced through the low timbre of his voice made her slide her eyes closed briefly against the longing she suddenly felt, before she straightened in her chair. _It’s only that you miss really talking to your best mate,_ she told herself silently.

She set her phone face down on the desk beside her and nodded, “Yeah,” she cleared her throat, “I’m fine, it just slipped out of my hand.”

It was the first thing he’d said to her since returning to the office earlier that afternoon, aside from a perfunctory hello. She felt a small lump forming deep in her throat and tried to discreetly clear it again. He was staring at her, his large hand spread against his file. She couldn’t quite tell if he truly believed that she was just clumsy, or if he suspected something more. She quickly searched the corners of her brain for something to say, something that might alleviate any suspicions he had that she might be lying. “It’s Friday, you know,” _Oh, nice one Robin,_ she thought to herself.

“Yes, it is.” He tossed a casual glance at the calendar that they kept on a wall on which they could both see it from their respective desks.

“Do you have any plans this weekend?” She averted her eyes, looking dutifully at the screen of her laptop. Though she couldn’t have said what she was even looking at in that moment. Every molecule in her body seemed focused on the anticipation of his reply.

“No,” she wasn’t sure if she was imagining the warmth in his voice, the very slight upward lilt of a question. “Finishing up some Christmas shopping, maybe. How about you?”

 _This is it,_ she thought. _Enough is enough, it’s time to get this friendship and partnership back on track._ “I have a date.”

She carefully avoided looking at him, shuffling through some papers without really seeing what was printed on them. She could see, out of her peripheral vision, that he had stilled completely. She knew it couldn’t have been anything more than surprise. He had made it clear the night of her birthday that he wasn’t interested. _He must not have expected me to get over it so quickly._ The thought made her a bit indignant and she squared her shoulders against the thought that he might think her a foolish woman with a silly, immovable crush now.

Cormoran seemed to take a full hour before making his reply, though in reality it was probably only a full minute, and when he finally did speak it was just a brief, “Oh.”

She couldn’t tell, from that one syllable, what he might be feeling or thinking. She’d thought that she might feel relieved to have said it, to show him that she was moving past the kiss and that they could once again be best friends, but Robin didn’t feel even an ounce of relief. She felt…a bit confused, if she was being honest. She’d expected more, somehow.

“Yeah,” she glanced at him, confused by the set of his jaw. “I’ve joined that dating service, Tinder.”

It seemed deafeningly quiet in the office and she felt her anxiety double. _He should be pleased,_ she thought to herself in the absence of his voice. One of the first things he’d taught her was that people were uncomfortable with prolonged silence, that if she said nothing the witness or suspect would inevitably try and fill in the gaps of conversation. So why couldn’t she just remain bloody quiet?

“Vanessa told me about it. The dating service, I mean. She heard about it through single colleagues at work.” _Shut up, Robin!_ But she couldn’t obey her silent command. “I—well, I thought it was about time I got back out there. After the divorce and…and everything.”

It was as close as she could bring herself to talking about her birthday, though she knew they’d have to talk about it at some point, wouldn’t they? She watched him carefully, out of the corner of her eye, as he bowed his head to once again focus on the file in front of him. Again, he said, “Oh.”

She cleared her throat and pressed on, standing up and gathering her things. “Anyway, I’m off. I’m supposed to be tailing Two Times’s latest girlfriend,” she tossed her mobile into her bag and blindly shoved a few papers in with it before shrugging on her coat, “Have a good weekend, Cormoran.”

She left the office, after having a brief chat with Pat about weekend plans and her bloody date, not feeling quite how she thought she would. She had thought she would feel relief and she didn’t. She had thought she would feel as if they were back on track, but she didn’t. She thought he would feel relieved, but he hadn’t really seemed to, had he? But again, she reminded herself that she couldn’t quite trust her intuition where he was concerned, because her intuition had led her to pressing her lips against his and thoroughly embarrassing herself on a chilly October night. The fact that he had initially kissed her back seemed to get lost in the fray. She’d put his response, the pressure of his hands around her hips, down to too much champagne and Doom Bar.

Robin followed the latest alleged cheating girlfriend around London that afternoon, more distracted than she’d ever been. Twice she’d lost the young, lithe blonde woman she was following, only to realise that the object of her pursuit had ducked into a shop or crossed the street unnoticed. Having been a psychology major at uni, prior to dropping out, she’d been keen to study things like multiple personality disorder and to find out why the mind worked in the way it worked. At the moment, she felt as if she had two distinct personalities and one wish-washy personality. There was the foolish personality, who filled silence with unnecessary words and hoped in vain that Cormoran’s reaction to her date meant more than it probably did. There was the insecure personality, who constantly compared herself to the other beautiful women that he’d dated—women like Lorelei and Charlotte Campbell, the Elins that had come and gone from his life, and an actual bloody supermodel like Ciara Porter. In what way did any of the Robins inside her think that she could even compare to those women? Then there was the third Robin, who wavered in her support of the other Robins, didn’t trust either of them, and who tossed her hands up in exasperation after realising she had once again lost the new girlfriend of their most steady source of income, muttering, “Bugger!”

She popped in and out of a few surrounding shops—frustrated with her own foolish musings about split personalities and their presence inside her, frustrated with the state of her relationship with Strike—but she hadn’t been able to pick up the leggy blonde’s trail again. Cursing herself for giving more headspace to her confusing, jumbled thoughts than strictly necessary, she turned toward the tube station, intent on heading home to get ready for her date.

***

The man she had swiped right on, and subsequently agreed to a date with, was a 40 year old arson investigator originally from a small hamlet in Kent, by the name of Tom Hewitt. Though his name was rather unfortunate only in that it reminded her strongly of Tom Turvey, his photos reminded her slightly of someone else. They portrayed him as rather handsome, with wavy brown hair and a slightly crooked smile. His eyes were the colour of moss, his nose straight, and he had listed himself as being quite tall with an athletic physique.

On advice from Max, her roommate, she arrived early and picked an unnoticed seat so that she could observe her date from a distance once he showed up. Max reasoned that she could decide then to either go through with the date or to sneak out unnoticed, though she didn’t think she had what it took to stand someone up like that. She ordered a small white wine to combat her nerves and slouched down in her chair, phone in hand, wondering idly if it was poor date etiquette to swipe right on other men while waiting for her date to arrive. Consequently, she swiped left on everyone out of guilt until Tom Hewitt walked through the restaurant’s doors—with five minutes to spare.

In reality, the handsome Tom Hewitt she was supposed to meet was no where near ‘quite tall’ and carried a sizable spare tire around his midsection. The only things his Tinder photos had accurately portrayed were his straight nose and crooked smile. His lovely wavy brown hair from his photos was severely thinning on top and his eyes were, more or less, the colour of a pickle. Still, she could see the ghost of the man he’d once been in the Tinder photos and, for reasons she couldn’t quite nail down, the Tom Hewitt that had turned up looking a bit less than advertised seemed to set her anxious shoulders at ease.

She slid out of her chair, abandoning her white wine on the table and made her way across the bar toward her date.

“Tom?” She asked, adopting the stance of someone who wasn’t entirely sure that she was approaching the right man. “Tom Hewitt?”

His dill pickle eyes widened as he looked at her, dragging them quickly up and down her body. It hadn’t been an entirely lascivious assessment, but there had been a tinge of something in his gaze that made her uncomfortable. “Robin Ellacott, isit?”

“Yes, hi.” She said, extending her hand. “Lovely to meet you.”

“Christ, yer’re gorgeous.” He slid his hand into hers, giving it a firm squeeze and a subtle shake.

She offered him a slightly embarrassed smile, gesturing toward the hostess stand, “Shall we?”

“O’course.” Still clutching his beer, he turned around abruptly and made his way toward the hostess to give his name. He seemed a little taken aback and she could only assume it was because he had assumed she might be using old photos of herself too.

As they were being seated at their table, a flash of movement to her left caught her attention. She thought, for a brief moment, that she’d seen Cormoran out of the corner of her eye, but it had merely been a passing server and she was obviously delusional. He hadn’t asked her a single question about her date, of course he wouldn’t know where she was and the likelihood that he would stumble upon them was not very probable. Tom had insisted on a posh restaurant and though she knew Cormoran had been to restaurants like these before with women like Charlotte and Elin, he was otherwise a local pub kind of guy.

She refocused her attention on Tom, ordered a starter, accepted a small glass of wine from the lovely bottle he’d ordered, and overall found herself to be having a decent time. Robin had not called him out on the fact that he’d used old photos of himself to misrepresent his looks, mostly because she was too polite, but also because she was actually enjoying his company. The rapport they’d established in messages had carried over to real life and she found herself laughing at both his jokes and his cockney accent. They’d each been once divorced, he had one teenage daughter, and both were married to their careers it seemed. In his spare time, which wasn’t plentiful, Tom enjoyed playing chess and by his account he was quite good.

She attempted to pay for her meal when the bill came, but he waved her off. “Wot sort of man would I be if I let a gorgeous bird such as yer pay for ‘er own meal, then?”

He hurriedly pushed his chair back after receiving his credit card and shoved it back in his wallet, moving around the table to help Robin out of her chair and into her coat. She thought the move very sweet and tried not to mind when he gestured that she go first, with a hand on the small of her back.

“Can I wolk yer ter yor car?” He asked, a she turned toward him to say their goodbyes just outside the restaurant doors.

She could tell from the hopeful expression he wore that he was hoping to possibly get a goodnight kiss, if not an invitation back to hers. She drew a quick breath, steeling herself to say, “I had a lovely time Tom, but I think this is where we should say goodnight.”

The slightly crestfallen look on his face made Robin feel slightly bad for rejecting him, but she didn’t see the point of leading him on. Tom Hewitt, while being a lovely man and a considerate date, was not _the_ man that was going to help her get over her unrequited crush on her partner.

“Right, luv, right,” he said congenially, “give us a ‘ug then. It were nice ter meet yer.”

She walked freely into his open arms, allowing him to hug her and wrapping her own arms around him. She had to admit that the human interaction, the feel of a man’s arms around her, was nice—that it was maybe even something she’d missed. Absently, she wondered if she would have gone farther if Tom had shown up looking like the Tom she’d been expecting.

Breaking the hug, Robin impulsively leaned in and kissed him on the cheek before turning around to head toward her car; and though it hadn’t been a thoroughly life changing date, or even one she planned to repeat, she spent the rest of the weekend feeling slightly happier than she’d felt in months.


	4. Strike

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to LulaIsAKitten for her wonderful beta skills! ❤️

Cormoran Strike was perhaps in a surlier mood than he had ever been in, sitting slumped in the seat of his BMW with his arms crossed tightly against his chest. He wasn’t sure how he’d arrived at this point, but he was certain that he shouldn’t be there. He killed the engine shortly after parking and sat there, stewing, as the temperature in the car rapidly dropped. He had a nagging thought in the back of his mind that he was being unfairly possessive, a bit like that twat had been.

“Bloody Max,” he murmured angrily to himself. He had been minding his own business, finishing up his Christmas shopping in a daze and trying very hard not to think of the woman he lo—cared for very much on a date with another man and wondering absently what one gives such a woman for Christmas. He could not, after all, get her flowers or chocolates. He was wandering aimlessly through a shop near Denmark Street when he bumped full force into Max Priestwood, of all people.

They had collided in much the same way that Strike and Robin had collided upon their first meeting on that fateful day, with Strike barreling into him whilst not paying attention. Though it hadn’t sent Max windmilling backward on the edge of a set of metal stairs, looking back on it, Max had rather seemed braced for impact. He had been so preoccupied that although his eyes had seen it his brain had failed register it; but in the cold of his car, parked outside a posh London restaurant, he was beginning to rethink that particular chance encounter with Robin’s flatmate.

Had he really run into Max? Or was it more likely that Max had taken it upon himself to run into him? Whether their meeting was by design or by coincidence, Max fell into step next to him as he wandered through the shop perusing the shelves and racks. He casually mentioned Robin more often than Strike thought strictly necessary, doing things like touching something on a shelf and gasping, “Oh, Robs would _adore_ this.”

Strike had the feeling that Max was doing this for his benefit and he wondered, _am I such shit at giving gifts that Robin’s mentioned it to Max?_ As Max’s slender fingers reached out to stroke the soft cashmere of a sweater the color of emeralds, Strike found himself wondering if Robin had asked her flatmate to help her partner shop. Max gasped again, running his fingers over the sweater, saying, “This would look _gorgeous_ on Robin, don’t you think? With her fair complexion and her rose gold hair?”

The quick glance Max flicked in Cormoran’s direction left the distinct impression that he was expected to also reach out and touch the fabric. He had, of course, felt cashmere before. Charlotte had worn nothing but silks and cashmeres and other impossibly soft fabrics, but Charlotte’s skin wasn’t the skin he was picturing against the buttery softness of the sweater. He snatched his hand back from the sweater, as if it were the garment’s fault that he was suddenly imagining creamy pale skin and lacy undergarments. He forced his mind away from those thoughts and instead allowed himself to acknowledge that Robin deserved to have luxurious things as he plucked the hanger off the rack, being careful not to touch the fabric again least it send his mind back to forbidden places.

“She’s on a date tonight, you know,” Max had said, breaking through his musings. “The poor sod is taking her to Ember Yard. I hear it’s quite nice, made a list of top spots or something.”

Strike made a noise in the back of his throat, clutching the hanger in his hand. He opened his mouth, intending to tell Max that it wasn’t his business, when Max suddenly startled beside him. “I’m so sorry, Cormoran. I’ve just realised I’m late for an appointment across town! I do think Robin is going to love your gift! Take care.”

Before he knew what was happening, Max was turning on his heel, slipping through a crowd of people, and disappearing into the busy London street and he, Cormoran Strike, was sitting in his cold car practically stalking a woman he was neither dating nor investigating. From time to time, he eyed the gift box that the sweater was in, wondering to himself if the whole thing had been an elaborate and meticulously planned ruse on Max’s part, just to pass him information on Robin’s whereabouts. Half of him was impressed, and he was suddenly considering offering Max a subcontractor position at the agency. If it had not been a coincidence, it had taken considerable skill for Max to track him down and arrange to bump into him, and he could certainly see the potential in having a professional actor on the pay roll—especially if _that_ was the quality of his work.

He refused to actually go inside. He still had a modicum of his dignity and pride, even if he was currently freezing his balls off in the car park of a top ten restaurant. _I’m only making sure she’s safe,_ he thought, rubbing his hands together in the cold before sticking them under his arms. In reality, he knew that she could take care of herself. She was the strongest, most capable woman he’d ever known and that included women that he’d met, fellow soldiers, during his time in the military. And yet, his brain could not stop transmitting the idea that she might go to the toilets and leave her drink unattended. He could not stop picturing a classically handsome, Matthew-esque man leaning across the table and dropping something, unnoticed, into her drink.

 _I just want to see her walking, then I’ll go._ He refused to admit to himself that he was also hoping to size up the competition or that he was beginning to suspect himself a masochist. Dragging a slightly warmer hand over his face, he sighed, “Christ, I’m a pathetic cunt.”

All of the break ups and make ups with Charlotte, taking her back time and time again after she’d chucked him or overplayed some dramatic lie, surely made him a masochist, didn’t it? The thought made his hand move toward the key in the ignition. He did not want to do that same push and pull with Robin, and yet here he was. Stalking her in a way that he’d never even stalked Charlotte, hugging her on steps with fleeting thoughts of asking her to run away with him, and hesitating once she was no longer married. His light grip on the key in the ignition tightened a bit and he was on the point of turning over the engine when she suddenly emerged from the doors into the cold December air.

Her golden strawberry hair was glinting in the dim lights flanking the doors and a weird sensation tingled along his spine. Any thoughts of watching for signs of being drugged seemed to melt away without his noticing as he sat behind the wheel, still gripping the key. He felt something a little bit like longing as he watched her turn toward a man that was about an inch or two shorter than she was.

“That’s the wanker she agreed to a date with?” His assessment of her date was not a very generous one. The prat was short and fat, with very little hair atop his head. He was no where near the classically handsome twat that Robin had previously married. Part of him was pleased to see that her date wasn’t handsome, but the other part of him worried a bit that she might feel she didn’t deserve to date a handsome man or that perhaps she couldn’t date a handsome man. He wondered, briefly, if she was completely unaware of how beautiful she was and if she realized she was far out of her date’s league.

The half smile that had been on his face melted away as he watched her step into her date’s arms. He moved both hands to the steering wheel, clenching hard as he suddenly pictured this knob head taking her home and sweating all over her lovely flushed, rosy pink skin. He hadn’t realised he was holding his breath until after she kissed him on the cheek and they parted ways. He was happy to see her walk to the old Land Rover, climb inside, and promptly drive off after turning the engine over. 

Clearly, they weren’t meeting at his or hers, as her date was lingering outside the restaurant having a fag. Feeling relieved, Cormoran turned over the engine and pulled out of his parking space. On a whim, as he passed by the doors of the restaurant, he rolled his window down and shouted out, “Ya manky tosser!”

***

He drove home with a maelstrom of suppressed emotions. Charlotte had gone out of her way, often, to try and make him jealous. Often, she succeeded in making him seethe with it like a green eyed monster. Early in their relationship, she enjoyed flirting with other men in the pubs or at parties, causing a fight between her very large boyfriend and some poor git dumb enough to think he could steal the dark haired beauty away from a man dating out of _his_ level. But he could not recall a time during any of their breakups where he had followed her the way that he’d followed Robin.

His relationship with Charlotte had been all fire and passion from start to finish, and their reunions were seemingly more intense after every parting, but he couldn’t recall ever fucking _stalking_ her the way that he’d just stalked his best friend and business partner. Somewhere in the back of his muddled brain, he knew that probably meant something, but he was not keen to give it any headspace. He was not prepared to get it out, turn it over, and dissect it. He was dimly aware that Ilsa and Nick would call him willfully stupid, they’d allege that he knew exactly what it meant. Perhaps he did?

He climbed the stairs to his attic flat in a fug, thinking of how he had meant to tell her his feelings that first day she came back to work. After not having set eyes on her for four full days after their kiss, he was ready to risk everything at the sight of her sitting at their shared desk; but then she’d given him the opportunity to delay and he’d taken it. He had decided it would keep, that he could do it later when things were less awkward and more calm. He had thought she was giving him more time. He’d plucked up the courage to talk about it again a month later, but she’d shut him down so harshly, he realised his mistake. She hadn’t been giving him more time at all. They’d grown farther and farther apart, talked less and less—until they were suddenly in this place again, the one they’d been in after she married someone else and he met Lorelei.

After she harshly called their kiss a mistake, he’d shoved everything he was feeling into a closet and decided not to attempt unpacking it again. He was the one who’d said all or nothing, hadn’t he? Well, there she was, telling him that it was going to be nothing. It was, of course, natural that she would want to date and he felt like an absolute arsehole for wanting to keep her for himself, making demands on her time, while also hesitating and resisting the idea of being with her. He felt—well, he felt a bit like that twat Matthew.

He set his packages on the sofa and went straight to his room to remove his prosthesis, change clothes, and climbed straight into bed. Sleep, however, was a fickle mistress. He tossed and turned as his mind churned over the fact that he’d sat in a cold car park for roughly an hour that evening. _I was just making sure she was safe,_ he told himself again and again. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somehow behaving like that twat Matthew would have done.

Sleep deprived and feeling annoyed with himself, he toyed with the idea of also joining Tinder and going on dates. He went as far as to download the app on his mobile, but quickly realised that he had as much desire to go on dates as he did to attend appointments for his stump. The idea of sitting across from a woman he didn’t intend to commit to, paying for an entire meal, and making meaningless small talk seemed insanely unappealing to him. He’d learned his lesson with Lorelei. The thought of using Tinder for sex, as he’d heard other men were doing, made him feel a bit grimy—though he was no stranger to the one night stand or, sometimes, even a two night stand.

Somewhere in the small hours of the night, he did create a Tinder profile for himself, though that was as far as he got before exhaustion finally claimed his consciousness and pulled him under. He spent the remainder of the weekend avoiding the app on his mobile, as if it were a bomb and tapping it with his thumb would detonate it. It had been a stupid, thoughtless decision made during a weak moment brought on by lack of sleep. He decided to ignore the app entirely, and forced himself not to think of Robin’s profile on the offending app either.


	5. Robin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry there’s been a big gap between posting! I had a really hard time with this chapter. So a huge thank you to LulaIsAKitten for talking it out with me, giving me suggestions and just generally making me think about where I wanted this to go and what I wanted to happen in this chapter. And of course for her brit-picking and beta work!

Monday morning dawned very cold and grey, despite the winter sun’s attempts to shine, and Robin found herself thinking how very unlike the picturesque snow-covered London of film and television it was. She side-stepped a pile of slush as she walked from the tube station toward Denmark street thinking, _this is not the sort of weather your love interest would chase you through the busy London streets in to tell you they love you_. Still, she found herself breezing into the office feeling a bit lighter than she had the week before. Her date hadn’t been the stuff of romance novels, and yes, he had misrepresented himself quite a bit, but it had been nice despite all of that. Tom had still been a man, he had still fancied her and it had been quite some time since she’d been on the receiving end of male attention—excluding Morris, of course. 

“Morning, Pat.” She tossed a warm, friendly smile in Pat’s general direction as she unwound her scarf and slipped out of her coat. “How was your weekend?” 

Pat, who had been aggressively typing at her computer, promptly abandoned her work and swiveled her chair to face Robin fully at the door as she hung her coat. “To hell with mine, how was yours? How was the date?”

Generally speaking, Pat was normally a loud talker. Her raspy voice could often be heard through the closed office door and sometimes even through the closed office door and the closed door of the tiny loo on the landing. As such, Robin felt a touch foolish for wondering whether Pat’s volume was louder than usual or not. She hid her embarrassed smile behind a curtain of silky hair and simply said, “It was nice.” 

“Oh? Just nice?” The older woman rasped, taking a quick pull of her vape pen. “With a bounce in your step, a song in your voice, and a smile like that on your face? It was just nice?”

Robin, who hadn’t thought her smile to be anything special or that she’d sounded or walked any differently than the week before, laughed at Pat’s assessment. “Yes,” she could feel her cheeks going pink, “I’ve never been on a date with anyone other than Matt before. I was a bit rusty I expect, but I think I managed alright.” 

“Was he handsome?” Pat asked rather wistfully, in Robin’s estimation, as she leaned forward and rested her weight on her elbow, the side of her chin in resting against her closed fist. 

The wistful tone and girlish posture took Robin a bit by surprise, because although Pat had obviously fancied Morris in the harmless way that an older married woman might fancy her attractive younger coworker—soaking in his attentions and giving his paperwork more priority—and although Pat had at times seemed to encourage a workplace romance between Robin and Morris, Robin had not taken her for a closet romantic. Suddenly, she didn’t want to disappoint Pat and found herself nodding her head in a distracted sort of way. 

“Yes, quite,” she hoped she didn’t sound as guilty as she felt about the lie, but then reasoned that she wasn’t completely lying. Tom had been handsome…in his Tinder photo. “He was quite the gentleman, too.” 

“Did you go back to his?” Pat asked boldly, a devilish smile on her face. 

“Goodness, no!” Robin said on a burst of unexpected laughter. “Bit too soon for all of that.” 

“Well, will you see him again?” Pat asked, undeterred. Her tone carried notes of a chain-smoking school girl, though her impassive face didn’t seem to match, leaving Robin to wonder if Pat was actually living for the romance of a first date with someone new, or if she was merely pulling Robin’s leg. 

“Maybe,” she lied, smiling warmly before swiftly changing the subject. “Is the rota finished for the week?” 

Realising that talk of the date was over, Pat swung back to face her computer as she nodded, “I put it on your desk this morning. Strike has already signed off, it just needs your going over before I send it out to the subs.” 

“Will do first thing,” she said, offering a small and thankful smile in Pat’s direction as she crossed the room. She realised two things simultaneously: one, the door to the inner office was closed and two, Strike must be inside. He only closed the door to their shared office when he was in with a client, on an important phone call, or when he was in a particularly foul mood. 

Her deductive reasoning told her that he was not in with a client, or prospective client. There were no extra coats on the coat rack and Pat would have mentioned, as was their custom. Nor could she hear the timbre of his voice through the door. It was logical to assume, then, that he was likely in a mood. She took a steadying breath before reaching out to turn the knob, unable to decide whether or not she was nervous to see him and feeling torn between hoping he’d heard Pat asking about her date and hoping that he hadn’t. 

“Morning, Cormoran,” her voice sounded light and breezy to her own ears as she entered the office. She could immediately see the tension in his shoulders and the clipped tone of his voice as he bid her good morning made her grit her teeth as she pulled the door closed behind her. 

“Pat says you’ve signed off on the rota?” She settled herself in her chair, directly across from him. He made a noncommittal noise and nodded his head, but did not look up from the open file on his desk. She cleared her throat and looked down, momentarily focusing her eyes on the wood pattern of her desk, thinking that this was shaping up to be their frostiest day yet. She swallowed the lump in her throat several times before looking up again. 

“Did you have a good weekend?” She asked, intending to bring up her date at the first natural opportunity, just to show him that she wasn’t hung up on him and he didn’t have to go back to this cool professional distance he’d once held her at. That they could go back to being friends, as they’d been before, but she was starting to wonder if that were even possible. 

“It was shit.” He answered shortly, still scanning the file on his desk. He did not, she noted crossly, ask her about her weekend. 

“Why? What happened?” Though her temper was rapidly growing, she tried for a conciliatory expression and tone but a response was not forthcoming. All she got back in response was a half-hearted shrug. It shot her temper straight to the penthouse and she found herself folding her arms on the desk in front of her, leaning in and staring hard. “ _My_ weekend was quite good, thank you for asking.”

Finally, he tore his eyes from the file and fixed them squarely on her. He wore a blank expression on his face, though she saw no traces of confusion in his eyes. She wondered if he even remembered that she’d had a date. It was the last thing they’d spoken about at end of the previous work week, but it had probably been so inconsequential to him that he hadn’t bothered to store the information away in his mind. The thought made her cheeks burn.

“I had a date,” she said firmly, her temper hovering in her throat. It seemed to spike even higher as he raised an eyebrow.

“Ah yes,” he tapped his finger against his desk and leaned back in his chair, “how was that?”

There was a note of something in his deep voice that made her shiver. If she didn’t know any better, she would have mistaken it for jealousy. She could hear the taut tones in her voice as she said, “It was wonderful, actually. He was very handsome.”

In that moment, he made a face that flooded her cheeks with a strange and potent mixture of anger and embarrassment. She had seen that face before, a million times over the years that they’d worked together. The expression had slid across his features unconsciously and if she didn’t know him as well as she did, she would have missed it completely.

“What?” Her voice was permeated with defensiveness as she leaned back in her chair. That one look from him, that had gone as quickly as it had come, had somehow felt like a slap across her face. “Why did you make that face?”

“What face?” He shot back, leaning forward as she had retreated.

“The face you pull when you know someone is lying to you.” She shot back hotly.

He held up his hands, posturing his surrender and said, “I never said you were lying, Ellacott.”

She might have believed him if it hadn’t been for the twitching at the corner of his mouth. As if he wanted to smile or laugh! Leaning back in her chair, she scoffed and folded her arms tightly underneath her breasts. “He was! He was very handsome. He was also incredibly nice and he was a great bloke! I could do with a bit of that after all I’ve been through.”

Her vision blurred and she realised that she was dangerously close to crying, but she couldn’t say if it was due to embarrassment, anger, or something else entirely. Perhaps the strain of their relationship had finally become too much for her to bear. She swung her chair around, facing the filing cabinets behind her desk and furiously swiped at her moist cheeks.

In the silence of their office, she became aware that Pat had stopped typing and realised that she had likely been shouting, and the suddenness of Strike’s voice made her jump as he said, “Robin, look, I think we ne—”

“I just want to go back to how things were, Cormoran.” Her voice wobbled on his name and she closed her eyes against it. “I want things to go back to how they were before my birthday.”

“I made a mistake. I was drunk and I made a mistake. Please don’t punish me for it anymore, because you’re my very best mate, Cormoran. You’re my partner, we have a business together. I don’t want to be as unhappy here, with you, as I was at home with Matthew.” 

It seemed like hours before he finally spoke, his quiet tone made up of a mixture of several emotions—some that she could name and others that she couldn’t. “I haven’t been punishing you, Robin. I’ve been trying to talk to you about it since blood October, but you’ve been cutting me off at the pass each time. I’ve been trying to clear things up, because I think you misunderstood me that night.”

“Yes, Cormoran,” her hoarse voice was laced with both fatigue and a touch of bitterness. “You’re absolutely right, but I understand you now. I just…I just want to forget that it happened and move on. I want to go back to how things were before and be friends again. I don’t want all the distance between us. I want to have drinks at the pub on Fridays with my best mate again. I…I’m not hung up on you or anything.”

If she’d not been facing the filing cabinets with her eyes squeezed shut, Robin Ellacott would have seen the exact moment that all the air seemed to leak out of his body, leaving him looking like a limp, deflated balloon in his chair. She didn’t see the sagging of his shoulders, the tic in his jaw, the flare of his nostrils, or the reflexive clench of his left hand. She missed the way that his short fingernails dug into his palm and the absolute wreckage displayed on his face. Instead, she heard him clear his throat.

It did not occur to either of them that they might each be misunderstanding each other now. That he might have been talking about everything that happened _after_ she kissed him did not seem to be a possibility in her mind. Nor did he stop to consider the possibility that the misunderstanding she was speaking of had been _before_ she’d kissed him. 

“I…I forgot that I need to nip out for a bit,” he said thickly, reminding her forcefully of her first few days spent as his temp, when he would leave the office for hours at a time—sometimes all day—and go to places like the Tottenham or who knew where else. “I’ll be back later this afternoon.”

She heard him lumber to his feet, the uneven thump of his walk against the wooden floorboards beneath them, and for nearly a full minute she held her breath. She knew that he was still there, without turning to see him standing at the door, clutching the knob and lost in his thoughts. She didn’t release her breath until she heard the door open, his uneven gait cross the threshold, and the soft click of the door behind him.

With her shoulders slumped, she turned her chair toward the window and stared out into the grey morning. She let her tears slide freely down her cheeks thinking about all the lies she’d told in her line of work, and how the one she’d just told had been the biggest one of them all. As she wiped her tears away, she turned away from the window and fixed her attention on the rota that sat unnoticed on her desk and thought to herself, _this is not the weather your love interest would chase you through London in._


End file.
